


Barbie Driver

by yekaterina



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, and she is NICE, butch trixie, getaway driver trixie and waitress violet, in which violet brings in the natural light to a neon lit world, trans violet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 07:22:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13654227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yekaterina/pseuds/yekaterina
Summary: "Who hurt you?" Violet says quickly. Her voice is tender, her smile fading. She moves forward an inch like she means to squat down and inspect the wound. Trixie wishes she would. Violet stops herself before she does and remains standing."I'm a driver," Trixie tells her as if that explains everything perfectly. It doesn't, she can see that much by the way her brow quirks. The sun is setting, making Violet's face glow a soft orange with the rays. Her eyes turn from chocolate brown to a deep black and Trixie wants to sink into the darkness of her eyes, her hair, her leather jacket.





	Barbie Driver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [koscheibessmertny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/koscheibessmertny/gifts).



> this is my response to violet being written as a villain all the time. it has been sitting around for a little while, so i thought, why not post it? obviously, this heavily borrows from the movies baby driver and drive, as well as from the video game hotline miami.
> 
> vrginsacrifice published neon-noir criminal activity way before me, with their insanely amazing story [friendly fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11891313/chapters/26858910). go read it, it is wonderfully written and it makes me so happy to see neon-noir representation in the rpdr fics world, a place where i would not have expected to find it, which makes it all the more sweeter!
> 
> this is for my sis lorrie, as i know she digs vixie as much as i do.
> 
> talk to me @ friendofdolly on tumblr.

She is staring out of her hotel room window, looking down at the street from two-stories above North East 1st Street. A thunderstorm is roaring to life, black clouds moving fast across the sky and hanging low over skyscrapers. She twists around to glance back at the map of Downtown Miami spread out on her bed, the crisp corners of the map held down by three plastic kid's toys from McDonald’s.

On the paper she has tonight's route drawn in pencil, starting from the pick-up spot outside of Chase Bank on West Brickell and ending in a parking complex by American Airlines Arena. It is a six-minute drive without traffic for most people, but she takes more into account than most people. Trixie has an Alcatel A206 pressed to her ear and she listens as the woman on the line goes over the plan again.

The woman asks her with laughter in her voice if Trixie's terms have changed any since the last time they worked together. Trixie doesn't laugh. She gathers up her things and heads out the door.

 

 

They are sitting in the car, burning the fuel of the unimpressive looking mid-size that she hadn't been in possession of before a half hour ago. Trixie is subject to her passengers' argumentative restrategizing of the robbery about to take place. She doesn't pay any more attention to them then she does to the Heat-Knicks game broadcasting lowly on the radio.

Trixie keeps quiet on the job, stoic and calm, emotionless. More android than woman. Precision, not personality. Some of her frequent-flyers get chummy with her regardless. DJ, in particular, is prone to this. She's cheered Trixie on during many an escape, patted her shoulder after all the times she has given the cops the slip for her and her girls. DJ is nice to her, funny even.

But she has seen her shoot a bank security guard in the face and walk away like it was nothing. Trixie can't find it in herself to laugh at her jokes. That and more keeps Trixie from returning her warm smiles, teeth instead busy chewing on a toothpick, her head simply nodding or shaking whenever DJ speaks to Trixie in person.

DJ sits in the passenger side of the car, while Red and MoMA sit in the backseat. Red is tapping one of her long acrylic fingernails the color of her name against the rain-dappled window endlessly. Trixie can feel her annoyance even more than she can see it in her eyes in the rearview. MoMA is having cold feet, her superstition telling her to tell DJ that a stormy, dark sky is a bad omen.

Her bald head shines a harsh purple, the neon sign from the pharmacy they are parked by casting a glow through the car windows. A couple huddled underneath a too-small-for-two umbrella walk past the car on the slick, shiny sidewalk. They are the only people seen out on the street. It is eerily quiet as if everyone knows what is coming.

Trixie doesn’t care if they back out or go through with robbing the bank of the quarter million it has inside. She gets paid either way. It all goes through her boss at the garage, if Trixie doesn't get her cut of their money tonight she'll get it later, with added interest.

She puts in her earbuds and closes her eyes. The loud crinkling of silicone tells her that MoMA lost the argument, that they are doing this. DJ has her mask propped up on her head and looks to Trixie for the ok. She holds up a finger as she scrolls through the songs on her pink bedazzled iPod Classic, selects Major Tom (Coming Home) then gives DJ a thumbs up without looking up at her.

“See you in five, Barbie,” DJ pulls down the mask, a _Star Trek: TOS_  era Dr. Spock, and she gives Trixie a thumbs up in return. DJ doesn’t know her real name just like how Trixie doesn't know any of theirs. The car doors all open and close at the same time, the small crew a well-oiled machine. As well-oiled as they can be.

The trunk popping open faintly registers in her ears, sounds of duffle bags loaded with guns being shuffled out mostly drowned out by the opening notes of her music. Her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Trixie has been doing this line of work since she was seventeen, but she has never gotten used to the sight of guns, their sounds, their power.

She hates them. The first time she ever saw a man shot to death she threw up on the spot and didn’t sleep well for a month. She can’t say much has changed since those first days. Trixie supposes she doesn’t hate guns enough to quit a job where she is face to face with them on a regular basis.

It would be irregular, actually, if she was the driver for a group that didn't condone violence. Trixie imagines it, imagines hearing some new phrase for no guns on one of the cryptic calls she gets on her landline. The ones she gets on his burner phone are simple, unorganized criminals not bothering to go the extra mile like the crime syndicate Trixie works with on and off does.

She is getting a new phone tomorrow morning. Trixie slides her hand into her jacket pocket to stroke a finger over the one she used tonight. It is a matte silver color, makes a satisfying snap noise when she shuts it. Very noughties chic. She is going to toss it in the dumpster outside of her apartment.

Trixie watches them enter the bank then pops open the glovebox and reaches into it, pulls out her wristwatch and loops it through the wheel. They have until 9:09 PM. She reaches back into the glovebox and pulls out her handheld police scanner and turns it on, tunes it to the local channel.

She hopes there aren't that many people inside the bank. She can’t count on her fingers the deaths she has seen by now, three days after her twenty-third birthday. Trixie slept all that day, neither of her two legitimate jobs needing her or any getaway job to pull that night. No obnoxious friends her age to get her hammered at a bar. Nobody to make love with.

For her birthday, she sat on the beaten up leather couch in her next door neighbor’s apartment and watched TCM on the television with the old man, drank some of his weathered scotch with him. The man (his name is Luke, one of few real names Trixie knows these days) is the father he wished he'd have had. Kind and calm, forgiving. Luke calls her _my girl_ like it is the most natural thing in the world.

She makes a mental note to check up on Luke tomorrow, bring him a bag of groceries and a book that he'd like. Trixie waits until the women are out of sight and earshot, stares blankly at the front door of the bank for a few seconds. Suddenly, she begins to sing along to the song playing in his earbuds. She dances to the music animatedly, popping her head back forth, wiggling her wide hips in her seat and tapping her fingers on the wheel like it is a piano.

Trixie switches to playing air guitar half-way through the song but soon freezes, drops her hands back on the wheel, having heard gunfire. She looks between the bank and the empty street. Through one of the wide windows of the building, she can see the women holding their guns up, aimed at the ceiling. Trixie limits her performance to bobbing her head gently and lip-syncing, eyes casually but carefully searching her surroundings. No cruisers are on the scene yet.

The song ends before the women get out of the bank and she readies to drive off and is about to replay it, but rather she opts to scroll up and select _I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)_. She lowers the volume and selects the shuffle feature. Trixie reinstates her earlier somber disposition, anticipating their reemergence to be soon. She'll give them the benefit of the doubt, for DJ's sake.

She presses her sneaker down on the break and shifts the car into drive. The women burst out of the doors at the same moment the beat drops in the song, all of them sprinting with red sacks full of money, bills flying out around them as they run to the car. The alarms sound in the building, high-pitched and blaring, echoing down the street and filling its previous silence.

Trixie leans over to pop open both of the right side doors for the women. DJ enters first, followed by Red and MoMA together. After Red shuts her door Trixie eases her foot onto the gas. The monotone voice of the woman on the police scanner begins detailing what just happened and they make it ten blocks before police sirens wail in the distance. The woman on the scanner says the vehicle in question is a _Toyota Camry_ late model and Red curses under her breath.

She sees a cruiser crawling down the street in front of them and she pulls the car over behind a parked big rig, turns off her front lights. She watches on as the cruiser moves further and further away. MoMA is halfway down in her seat and it sounds like she's praying. Trixie glances back in the rearview, notes how the streetlight above shines on her Star of David necklace. When she looks back to the road ahead, the cop car is gone.

On the police scanner, a man's voice says the street that they are on is clear. Trixie turns her front lights back on and pulls out of the temporary parking space, turns onto the road that the cruiser is on. She is tailing it, and when the cruiser turns left she turns right. They're good for the next couple minutes, she maintains the speed limit and the scanner is a back-and-forth between clueless voices.

Trixie takes them past Lyric Theatre Station and she sees the helicopter in the sky.

The helicopter shines a light down onto the street and is approaching them overhead. Trixie doesn't speed forward, even with Red's urgent and harshly-worded insistence on doing so cutting through the silence between the four people. It is when the searchlight shines right through the windshield and she hears a voice say they have a visual that Trixie stomps on the gas. She takes them straight down the street then pulls a hard left into an alley.

She finds a building with an awning and pulls into a spot underneath it and shuts off her front lights again, switches her foot onto the break. The scanner says the police have lost visual but she hears no sighs of relief. The searchlight circles all around them menacingly and the roar of the helicopter's blades roar overhead. Her fingers flex on the wheel as she waits for any other signs of life.

The monotone woman reports of suspected gang violence halfway across Downtown and she sends out units to scope the scene. The scanner quiets for a moment and Trixie waits until it has been a full minute before turning the lights on and pulling onto the street, turning onto a busy one. Cars are passing by all around them and the scanner advises units to check out the street where they were last seen.

Trixie turns the volume back up on her iPod after she pulls to a stop at a red light. DJ pinches the sleeve of Trixie's jacket between her forefinger and thumb. She has gunpowder on her fingers and gets black dust on the satin.  _Better than blood_ , Trixie thinks.

"Don’t you own anything besides Hawaiian print shirts and this Pink Ladies disaster?” DJ asks, speaking loud as to overtake the 80s pop playing in her ears. Trixie shakes her head no and DJ scoffs with a smile, reloads her shotgun then cocks it, rolls down her window. She likes clean and quiet getaways, but not as much as Trixie does.

She can smell the blood on her. Trixie resists the urge to press the button on her door and roll her window back up.

“Are you concerned about Barbie being recognized?” MoMA asks. It is said in a mocking tone as she leans forward, poking her head between the front seat headrests. DJ rolls her eyes, urges MoMA back into her seat with knuckles pushing into one of her shoulders. The bald woman falls back with a huff and says something in an aside to Red.

“I’ve never heard her speak,” Red says, softer than either of the other two women, but more serious as well. She asks Trixie flat-out if she is mute. MoMA swats Red upside the head and DJ laughs harder than she has all day.

Her laughter stops suddenly. A cruiser is across the street from them. Trixie doesn't need to listen to a new man's voice on the scanner saying the possible suspect is at a stoplight to know she can't slip through the cops' fingers so easily this time. She looks over at DJ quickly, her eyes a little wide. DJ gets the message and tells everybody to brace.

The light turns green and Trixie slams down on the gas, police sirens screaming as the car speeds by. Her hands are sweating in her leather driving gloves. She rips down the street and can see in her rearview that the cop car makes a U-turn and speeds up to follow behind. Trixie swerves in and out of traffic and blows past red lights.

She drifts into another dark alley, drives in a serpentine pattern to dodge corners and dumpsters, a parked truck, and a man out on his smoke break. She loses the cruiser. Trixie slows down, makes a right onto a street and the police sirens echo further and further away until she cannot hear them. She drives on and pulls into the parking complex, finds an empty space on the first level, and shifts the gear into park.

The radio tells the final score of the Heat-Knicks game, but she can tell by the cheering of fans beginning to fill up the parking complex that the home team won. The women catch their breaths or release the ones they've been holding and Trixie shuts off the car. She then flicks the off switch of the police scanner and turns off the radio.

“To answer your question, Red. How do you fucking think I talk to her over the phone?” DJ says, after a beat. She pats Trixie's shoulder, staining her pink jacket with even more black fingerprints. Red mutters something about grunting as verbal communication. DJ lowers her voice. “Sorry for talking about you like you’re not here.”

Trixie doesn't respond. She puts her watch and the police scanner into her duffle bag sitting at DJ's feet before picking it up. She exits the car and spits out her toothpick. Trixie shrugs out of her jacket and stuffs it in her bag, trading the jacket for a vintage Miami Heat hat and she puts it on. The song on his iPod ends and she turns off shuffle, chooses a mellow rap song to bring her heartbeat down to a normal pace.

As she walks out of the parking complex a police cruiser pulls up and she walks past it and past the two other cruisers parking alongside the sidewalk. A cop exiting one of the cars points to Trixie's hat and asks her what the final score was. Trixie tells the woman in blue that the Heat beat the Knicks 107 to 103. The cop smiles tight-lipped at her and Trixie tips the bill of her hat.

A waitress is pouring another round of coffee into Trixie's empty mug when she sees Violet sitting in one of the booths by the window, electric blue headphones covering her ears. She's head-shaking side to side, flipping through a magazine. Trixie thinks it is an issue of _Rolling Stone_. She knows her name is Violet because that's the name the woman responds to when Trixie sees her working here.

She has never gotten close enough to see if it is what her nametag reads on her waitress uniform, the one straight out of the 50s. The uniform is black and white, matching the tiles of the diner floor. The hem of the dress stops halfway down Violet's thighs. They look lean but strong. Soft to the touch. The shirt sleeves of her uniform stop a little past the shoulder where she rolls them up and Trixie's eyes trace over the tattoos running down her arms.

All the women who work here wear the same exact thing as she does, but on Violet, it looks like something out of one of the classics Trixie watches with Luke. It just looks authentic on her. Trixie wonders if she hates it.

Violet's boots tap rhythmically on the tile floor and Trixie crosses her arms on the table and leans forward. Trixie has seen her on movie sets as well. She does make-up for the stars of action films while Trixie sits on the other side of the mirrors and puts on SFX masks that resemble their brutish faces.

She has never spoken to Trixie and vice versa. She catches Violet staring at her whenever she's wiping down the bar and Trixie lets Violet catch her staring at her whenever she is picking songs on the jukebox. She always hopes she picks something Violet likes. She always does, she knows when she can hear Violet singing along to them in the kitchen. They have shared but two real interactions.

The first was the time Violet brushed past her on a set and dropped one of her make-up pencils. Trixie got out of her chair and picked it up for her, placed it gently in her palm with a closed-mouth smile on her face. Violet smiled back at her brightly, though shyly, before returning to do a touch-up on a B-Movie grade Bruce Willis. Where her arm briefly touched Trixie's burned like someone struck a match against her skin.

She could be B-Movie star, but she doesn't want to be. Even if that meant talking to Violet and hearing what her voice would sound like speaking to her. She sounds so kind when she talks to the actors on set, to the people who eat at the diner.

The second time was when Violet brushed past her here. Nothing ever came of it. She has been coming to this diner for years now but Violet has only started working here last month. Trixie hadn't seen her on a movie set until around that time, either. She must be fresh from out of town.

Trixie is watching her lip sync now, her eyes on her mouth until she recognizes what song she is listening to. Trixie pulls out her black iPod Nano and selects  _Rock With You_. He starts mouthing the words like she does, but she is too far behind to be in sync with her. It is more like an echo.

All of a sudden Violet is standing, putting on her leather jacket and adjusting the strap of a handbag over her shoulder. Her shift must be over. Trixie hears someone talking faintly to her left and she looks away from Violet reluctantly, though she can see her out of the corner of her eye. She seems to be having trouble with her bag. Trixie entertains the idea of her stalling for time.

After a few seconds, she is out the front door and heads towards a motorcycle parked beside the diner. The sun shines through the window she is next to, near-blinding. Trixie blocks the light with her hand but Violet doesn't appear to be bothered by the sun shining down on her. She glows in the light, her headphones, the jewelry around her wrist, her big hoop earrings glinting and Trixie blinks as she takes off on the bike. Violet dots color Trixie's vision.

“What the hell are you doing?” The bemused voice of the waitress at her booth grabs her attention away from Violet. Trixie stops lip syncing and she grins, eats a spoonful of her apple pie.

“Relax your mind,” Trixie speak-sings. She gestures with his spoon, tapping the silverware against her temple before pointing it at the waitress' head. The woman rolls her eyes and Trixie shimmies her shoulders. “Lay back and groove with mine."

"You talked to that girl yet?" Are the first words out of Luke's mouth. Trixie shakes her head as she stands in the doorway of Luke's apartment, holding a brown paper bag stuffed with groceries and a used copy of  _Fahrenheit 451_. Luke hums disapprovingly at her response and he opens the door all the way, lets Trixie shut it behind her. She goes into the kitchen, puts up most of the groceries but leaves out what she knows Luke will want for dinner.

She heads into the living room. It is a kitschy nautical setting, furniture consisting solely of antiques. Luke sits in a brown leather recliner. A leather couch is situated next to it. The primary colors besides the brown of old leather are red, white, and blue. Wooden maritime wheels line the walls.

A swordfish is mounted over the long out-of-use fireplace. Old photos of a family Trixie has never seen in person are in picture frames on little tables. Luke talks about them from time to time, and each time they have different personalities and live in different places. Trixie doesn’t know if Luke's memories are just getting muddled up or if it is _going_. 

She hands Luke one of the Lone Stars she got out of the fridge and extends the book out to him. The man smiles, gestures at the empty couch. Trixie walks past it and slides the book into a gap in the bookshelf across the room before sitting down on the couch. She unbuttons her jean jacket, slips out of her brown Chelsea boots and tucks her feet under her legs.

" _The Great Escape_  is on. If you fancy yourself a real stuntwoman, you need to see it," Luke's hands shake a little as he tries to open the beer can and Trixie eases it out of his hands, pops it open and gives it back. Luke thanks her and takes a sip. "You like Steve McQueen?”

"Steve McQueen was my first love," Trixie replies. She drinks from her can and picks up the remote off of Luke's armrest, turns up the television volume before Luke asks her to. "Or really, I wanted to be him."

Luke laughs, head tilted back. They sit in peaceful quiet for a while, watching Steve McQueen bounce a baseball against a prison cell wall. "Yeah. He was mine too.”

The movie ends and she puts her shoes back on. Luke reaches over to touch her shoulder. Trixie sees the concern and the disappointment on her friend’s face and her heart starts to race.

“I was watching the news earlier. They got an aerial shot of you. It’s a crappy photo, black and white, blurry, you were looking away. But I recognized you. How many other people do you think will recognize you, girl?”

“Nobody.”

 

Teenagers are riding around on bikes in the empty parking lot across the street. They are all trying to outdo the other, riding as far as they can over the broken pavement with the front wheel popped as high in the air as it can go. Trixie has been acting as an unofficial judge, comparing their skills to her own when he was their age. She has countless scars on her knees and shins from those years.

Today Trixie has a bruised and swollen cheek and she is holding a bag of frozen peas to her purple skin as she sits against the wall of the diner. The stunt she had to pull hours ago went haywire, the coordination way off. She is lucky to have walked away from it at all. The stuntman who drove a car into the side of hers ten seconds before he was supposed to is in the hospital, both of his legs broken.

Trixie plans on swinging by tomorrow with a card signed by the cast and crew and a pack of cigarettes that will be confiscated as soon as the man lights one up. Trixie will just come back the next day and bring another pack. She'll bring a car magazine, too. Trixie feels terrible about the whole thing though she wasn't responsible.

The movie people aren't responsible either, every stunt-person has to sign a contract before crashing into each other. Signing liability forms have become trivial for her over the years. She doesn't even read through them anymore or look at the paper as she signs it, but seeing firsthand what that lack of reimbursement means for someone makes her feel sick.

Trixie keeps his dirty money stowed in the HVAC air vent above her bathroom door, stacks of cash hidden behind a black metal grille. She could take some of it out, help with the man's medical bills. She could, but that doesn't mean she would. Or should.

She keeps her clean money in the bank.  There isn't much, comparatively speaking. Trixie trusts her air vent more than she does Chase Bank. They were just robbed the other week, after all.

"You look pretty," Violet's voice emerges out of the noises of the retreating daylight. The harsh sounds of skids and metallic cranks from the bikes are all but muted as Trixie looks up in complete shock at Violet standing beside her. She is smiling, leaning her shoulder into the wall. Her hands are tucked in the pockets of her jacket. She manages to look so petite, like a fawn, despite being taller than Trixie. Her estimate is a four-inch difference.

"I don't get that often," Trixie says, a little breathless. Her fingers squeeze the bag tightly, almost enough to make it pop and send peas everywhere. She lowers the bag down onto her stretched out leg to prevent that from happening. It is cold against her thigh like it has been on her skin and she shivers, her thigh twitches.

"Who hurt you?" Violet says quickly. Her voice is tender, her smile fading. She moves forward an inch like she means to squat down and inspect the wound. Trixie wishes she would. Violet stops herself before she does and remains standing.

"I'm a driver," Trixie tells her as if that explains everything perfectly. It doesn't, she can see that much by the way her brow quirks. The sun is setting, making Violet's face glow a soft orange with the rays. Her eyes turn from chocolate brown to a deep black and Trixie wants to sink into the darkness of her eyes, her hair, her leather jacket.

"A taxi driver? Chauffeur? Are you a bad one?" Violet asks. She kicks her boot against Trixie's sneaker to punctuate her last question. Trixie laughs, then winces. She presses the bag harder against her face and Violet's face withers like she was the one to bruise her. "You shouldn't have asked Chi Chi for help with that. You should've asked me.”

"I was scared," Trixie has a hint of a smirk on her mouth. Violet folds her arms, purses her lips in what seems an attempt to prevent a smirk of her own. Trixie glances over at a car speeding down the road then back at her and she shrugs. "You drive a motorcycle. You're too tough for me. Intimidating. You could kick my ass.”

"I probably could. Come on. One of my coworkers keeps a heating pad in the back," Violet holds out her hand to her. Her palm looks coarse but still soft like she does hard work but slathers lotion on after she showers. Trixie moves the bag of peas to her other hand and grabs Violet's. She pulls her up to stand easily.

Violet walks her back into the diner, past the booths, into the kitchen. They get a couple of looks, but it is near closing and nobody bothers with bothering them. She tells Trixie to sit on a metal table and she does, legs kicking gently as they hang over the edge. Violet rifles through cabinets and glances over her shoulder at Trixie.

“What’s your name?” Violet asks. Trixie's legs stop kicking and she laces her fingers together in her lap. Violet yells out a small  _found it!_ , wrangles a heating pad out from its hiding place behind cans of gravy. She walks over to a microwave and puts it in, sets the clock. "I've seen you around, but I've never heard what they call you.”

Violet walks over to one of the sinks and wets a washrag with warm water, comes back to stand in front of Trixie. She says a quiet apology when she dabs her face with the rag. The small bursts of pain makes Trixie's eyes screw shut. Trixie feels hot fingertips on her jawline and her toes curl.

“Barbie," She says.

“B-a-r-b-i-e? Barbie?" Violet sounds dubious. The microwave beeps loudly and she jumps, drops the washrag onto the ground to cover her mouth, a weak attempt to conceal her laugh. Trixie nods. She doesn't mind her giggling. Violet blushes and speeds away from her to open the microwave, tosses the pad back and forth between her hands like a hot potato as she comes to stand in front of her again.

"What's yours?" Trixie asks as Violet presses the heating pad against her cheek. It hurts but she doesn't complain, opts to dig her fingers into her own thighs, grease-stained fingernails scraping against the blue jeans tight on her legs.

"Violet," She answers. Trixie's eyes open to Violet gazing at her pleasantly. Worries try to creep into Trixie's brain, doubts about whether she looks as unkempt as she feels, but they come to an abrupt halt as Violet's fingers stroke down her unblemished cheek. She's nervous around Violet, yet calm. It is remarkably easy to talk to her and to be around her.

More-so than she had been telling himself it would be. Trixie is an idiot for not having said anything to her before and she means to shake the hand of the stuntman in the hospital. She knows the injury she received had to have been the catalyst. Chi Chi didn't need somebody looking like her loitering outside of her business, she had to have sent Violet out to talk some sense into her.

"Like the song," Trixie says, quietly. Violet draws the heating pad away for a second to have a gander at the bruise. The swelling has gone down somewhat.

"By Hole?" Violet questions. She presses the pad against her cheek again. "More like the flower. My mom is cool, but she's not that cool."

"I knew your name already. You have a tendency to get yelled at," Trixie admits after a quiet moment. Violet laughs and she continues speaking on through the deep, sweet sound about how Chi Chi has a _very projective voice, like a trained, professional actor_. Violet shushes her by putting her hand over Trixie's mouth.

Violet is leaning into Trixie's space as her laughter dies down and Trixie's eyes run down her face to her neck, her collarbone. Violet smells like food, mostly. Sweat, too. There is a perfume in the mixture, something soft and warm that must be sweeter than Trixie could bear when it is in full effect, if it is already making her smile as it wafts into her nose briefly.

"I do stuntwork," Trixie breaks the silence. Violet leans away and they regain eye contact. "I work on cars too. That's my real job.”

"So you do a bit of everything," Violet turns over her free hand. Trixie gives the bag of peas to her. Violet looks between her and the fridge, and the trash can by the back door, then back at Trixie again. She's asking for her suggestion. Trixie points at the trash can and Violet nods, agreeing. She tosses the bag into the trash. "What garage do you work at?”

"Jinkx's Auto Shop. On Bay Road?" Trixie has no idea where Violet would live. Or if she's the type to like the quieter side of the city or the louder part, or if she can afford to even consider her preferences. Wishful thinking has Trixie imagining Violet living close by her or at least nearby the garage.

"I've never been there. Maybe I'll stop by the next time I have trouble.”

"Maybe you should. But I don't want you to have any trouble.”

"It's inevitable. I might have to get into some just to see how your face turns out," Violet's finger outlines Trixie's bruise just far enough from her face to make her skin tingle. She pauses, waiting for Trixie to say something. So she does.

”You don't have to. I have nothing going on this weekend,” Trixie offers. She clears her throat. “I could give you lift someplace. If you want to.”

”So you are a chauffeur,” Violet teases. Trixie scoffs at that as if she’s personally offended her but the sound catches in her throat. Violet is twisting the heating pad in her hands and twisting her hips just enough to be noticeable. Trixie's fingers itch to wrap around her waist. She wants Violet to guide her movements. Show her the way. Wherever Violet wants to go.

”If you want me to be,” Trixie doesn't miss a beat. She speaks in a monotone, somewhat sarcastic. Violet giggles at her antics. “You like movies? I could drop you off at the movies.”

They share an amicable silence and her spine is tingling as Violet's eyes bore into her. Trixie looks down at her feet and she shakes her head, then nods. She looks back up at Violet and she is clearly amused, her dark eyebrows raised up high.

”Or we could go together,” Trixie corrects, her tone genuine again.

“I’m free this weekend too,” Violet rushes it out of her mouth, not waiting for Trixie's last syllable to finish.

She sets the heating pad down on the table and slides a hand into her jacket pocket, pulls out her phone. The case is a light pink marble with purple-ish silver scrambled lines all over it. She unlocks it and takes one of Trixie's hands off her thigh, places the phone in her palm for her to create a new contact.

Violet shows Trixie her empty hand again, curls her fingers back rapidly into the skin of it. “Give me your phone, Barbie.”


End file.
